Why We Love Fire Trucks

Everyone in our house loves fire trucks.

O loves them because they are shiny, and they make noise, and it's fun to see your big brother's reaction when you take one away from him.
N loves them because she remembers going to Uncle Mike's firehouse when she was four. She remembers that Uncle Mike let her and B sit in one, and also gave them their first chicken wings.
B loves them because Uncle Jim works on a fire truck, and he thinks Uncle Jim is really funny. Uncle Jim also sings the chicken wing song, which B also thinks is really funny.
None of us are really sure what the relationship between chicken wings and fire trucks is. We just know there is one.

Jimmy loves fire trucks because he loves to tell the story of how they showed up at our house one summer night in response to an anonymous report of an "open fire", which consisted of about 3 embers in a fire pit in our back yard, which Jimmy and a couple friends were still sitting around.

I love fire trucks because my dad was a fireman, and when your dad is a fireman you learn to love fire trucks. I also love them because, when you are home on a Saturday afternoon, and your husband and daughter are out, and your boys are napping upstairs, and you hear a funny noise, and then smell something, and then realize that there is a haze of smoke in your kitchen, you can call them. And that shortly after you have dragged your sleeping boys out of your house, with your dog following, they come. I love them because they bring the firefighters, who tell you, after a thorough search of your home, that it is just the refrigerator. That you will need a new one, but that is all.

I love fire trucks because they remind me by their very presence that the after effects of this may have been much more than just a broken refrigerator and a smelly kitchen. If it happened at 4 in the morning and not 4 in the afternoon. If I had fallen asleep with B when I laid down next to him at nap time. If I had stored paper grocery bags between the fridge and the wall, as I sometimes do (did).

I love fire trucks because they remind me of all that I have. A smelly kitchen. A broken refrigerator. A house. Three kids, a husband, and a dog.

Some of that is not a big deal at all.

And some of it is.

Have you checked your smoke detectors lately?